LETTER TO THE EDITOR: One person gets it

Thursday

Nov 30, 2017 at 4:00 AM

Re: Column, Oct. 22, “SEC football, Thomas Picketty and fiddler”

No surprise it took a female, columnist/money manager mustering enough nerve to even mention economist Thomas Picketty’s startling and thoroughly researched conclusions. The permanent imbalance of wealth and power plaguing humanity for centuries is built in! Blessings from such as Ayn Rand or trickle-down economist Milton Friedman are hardly necessary. Reinforced by similarly incorporated patriarchal political, cultural and religious authority! The root of divine, or market blessed, authority right up to this evening’s newscasts.

Conservatives, armed with social Darwinism, contend the big fish/little fish thing’s just nature’s way of providing competition and warfare necessary for sturdiest gene pools to survive. Consider a pride of lions, “big hair” guarding his turf. Bull elk bellowing in the night. But females, they insist, are equally prone to violence. Sure! Ever stumble across a bear cub in the woods? Nonetheless, who’s the last female shooting up a church, office, public square or McDonalds? Women can play the male card – but it’s different. I’m old enough to remember pants suits and silly little ties. Just being one of the boys.

Yet everywhere, from Hollywood to Congress and courts, even Wall Street’s sacred halls, something’s stirring not seen since the ’60s. That epoch particularly loathed by what passes for conservatism now. Question is, can the more survivable, pragmatic and female characteristics take root in time? Changes demanded now far exceed the “revolutionary.” Actual “evolutionary” cultural change is vital, just in view of climate and resource depletion. Forget thinking out of the box. Ladies, please move us out of that box! Clearly one finance-oriented lady gets it.